Is Vintage All-That? - Ask Zac 49

well hello friends and welcome to
1:03
another Ask Zac i hope you're doing
1:05
well
1:06
uh you know just having fun doing a
1:09
little a little
1:10
chicken picking on an old uh jimmy
1:13
Bryant tune jimmy Bryant wrote that call
1:15
only daddy little
1:16
that'll only daddy that'll walk the line
1:18
of course it was a
1:19
hit for Waylon Jennings but other people
1:21
recorded it and
1:23
Wayne moss played the guitar solo on
1:25
that on a uh
1:26
on a jazz master and uh
1:29
and i think Marty Stewart owns that
1:31
guitar now but uh
1:32
yeah Wayne moss that's a guitar player
1:34
you ought to look up
1:36
so i played on some Dillon stuff and
1:39
you know was part of the Nashville cats
1:41
and uh
1:42
yeah so today we're gonna talk
1:45
about the vintage mystique or the
1:48
antique mystique
1:50
and uh and now we're gonna have fun
1:53
we're going to do
1:54
a little uh i hate to say myth busting
1:56
but
1:57
you know this all comes from a phone
1:59
call that a
2:00
friend you know made to me and i just
2:02
kind of want to address the whole
2:04
vintage thing
2:05
vintage and boutique vintage versus
2:07
modern i want to have my take on that
2:09
but first while you're thinking about it
2:11
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2:12
subscribe
2:14
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2:15
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2:17
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2:19
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2:21
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2:23
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2:24
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2:27
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2:28
so uh please do that and that's what
2:30
keeps the show going
2:32
so the vintage mystique um
2:36
about two weeks ago a good friend of
2:38
mine that works in the musical
2:40
instrument you know kind of industry
2:42
he called me up and he said uh you know
2:44
i said
2:46
i think I'm gonna sell to him you know
2:48
one of my boutique amps in a boutique
2:51
guitar and i really want to get i want
2:54
something vintage
2:55
i want i want a vintage guitar
2:58
and part of me thought oh that's cool
3:02
but part of me thought kind of like well
3:05
what's going on here
3:07
you know why is it that he has these you
3:09
know
3:10
you know great guitar and amplifier that
3:12
he's just
3:13
wanting something vintage
3:16
and so it made me really kind of analyze
3:20
you know my thoughts on vintage
3:22
obviously i like vintage stuff
3:24
and i like modern stuff so i mean this
3:25
is my 67 tele
3:27
that I've had for about a decade and uh
3:30
you know of course i have
3:32
vintage amps but i also have a lot of
3:34
boutique stuff i have dano caster and
3:36
bill crook and you know I've got new and
3:39
old pedals and all sorts of stuff i
3:40
don't
3:41
think of myself as a vintage snob but
3:44
maybe some of you do think of me that
3:46
way but
3:47
i think if you've watched the show
3:48
you've seen that i use the
3:50
you know boutique guitars as much or
3:52
more than i use even my vintage one
3:55
so here are my thoughts
3:59
on you know the vintage mystique or the
4:02
antique mystique
4:04
so first off
4:08
you have this sense of nostalgia and you
4:11
have this
4:12
sense of romanticism and
4:15
because you think of vintage guitars as
4:17
being the guitars that your heroes
4:19
played
4:20
and uh yeah and and they're old
4:24
and they're expensive and so
4:26
automatically they're seen as being
4:28
better
4:29
you know and part of this
4:32
is propagated by the major collectors
4:36
and the the dealers of vintage guitars
4:40
because it's there to advantage for them
4:42
to have
4:43
more mystique attached to them and also
4:46
to continue to push up
4:47
you know the value of them you know
4:51
one of the things i want you the viewer
4:53
to understand
4:54
is that when you're buying new guitars
4:56
or boutique guitars
4:58
there's a certain amount of
5:01
with consumerism there's not a lot of
5:03
rationalism but there's still a little
5:04
bit more rationalism when it comes to
5:06
buying
5:06
new guitars and amps and such but when
5:09
you
5:10
enter the vintage guitar world you
5:13
are entering the collectible marketplace
5:17
and in the collectible marketplace it is
5:19
very volatile
5:20
and it is driven by emotion and driven
5:24
by
5:24
fads and in in a sense everything is
5:28
but you know vintage guitar prices
5:31
can go all over the place and things can
5:35
go
5:35
up in value drastically and if there's
5:37
an economic downturn probably one of the
5:39
first things
5:40
or actually one of the first things to
5:42
get hurt in an economic downturn is
5:44
collectibles
5:46
so that's why you know the last big
5:47
economic downturn
5:49
a lot of vintage guitars lost 40 to 50
5:51
percent of their value overnight
5:54
and it took a long time for them to
5:56
recover
5:58
and part of that recovery was pushed by
6:01
you know dealers
6:02
and and collectors that want their stock
6:05
to be worth more money
6:07
you know and there's i have no problem
6:09
with dealers and collectors and
6:11
you know that's that's their business
6:13
but if you're gonna get into
6:15
the vintage guitars you need to
6:17
understand
6:19
that this is part of it
6:22
you know just walk in with your eyes
6:24
open
6:26
so this is you know my 67 tele
6:30
and frankly the only reason i could
6:31
afford this guitar was because of the
6:34
last economic downturn and so
6:37
you know i was able to get this guitar
6:39
and i don't really like to talk about
6:41
what i paid for stuff but
6:43
you know i got this this guitar for four
6:45
thousand dollars
6:46
so and this is you know pretty much all
6:49
original
6:50
you know the only you know the only
6:52
thing that's not is like the uh the
6:54
output jack cup
6:56
so on it it has a uh if you look here
6:59
it's got a rudders
7:00
you know jack on there because someone
7:02
had actually put a big Gibson
7:04
kind with four big screws on it and so
7:06
but otherwise it's an original guitar
7:10
so now so ten years later
7:13
these guitars are selling for 8 to 10
7:16
grand
7:17
in this same condition and it's like
7:20
and part of me is like oh that's kind of
7:22
cool but also it's kind of crazy too
7:24
and frankly it makes me less comfortable
7:28
playing this guitar and taking it out
7:30
because when this guitar was a 4 000
7:32
guitar
7:34
you know i would take it out on the road
7:36
and i would play it
7:38
and if i was even if i was in town if i
7:40
was doing a rehearsal or something like
7:42
that
7:42
i could leave it in my trunk and I'd
7:45
probably still try to park someplace
7:46
where i could see my car
7:48
if i was eating you know stopping to eat
7:49
someplace
7:51
but i wouldn't be freaked out about it
7:53
well the last time
7:55
you know this was two three years ago
7:58
i did some some road dates with a friend
8:00
of mine
8:01
and i took this guitar and
8:04
i couldn't take my eyes off of it the
8:06
whole time so every time we would take a
8:08
break
8:09
you know i had one eye on this guitar
8:12
because it was sitting on on the stage
8:13
on a guitar stand up there that anyone
8:15
could just
8:16
hop up there and grab it and
8:19
frankly it made me less comfortable and
8:22
it just made for the you know the break
8:23
that we had
8:25
it made me i just wanted the break to be
8:27
over
8:28
you know i wouldn't even even able to
8:30
enjoy my break
8:32
you know and I'll just echo this and i
8:34
recently
8:35
interviewed Pete Anderson and Pete
8:37
Anderson was talking about taking his 59
8:39
strat to a club
8:41
and he said there's a 30 000
8:44
guitar that's sitting on a guitar stand
8:46
and he said i didn't feel like i could
8:47
you know walk away from it hardly any so
8:50
he stopped playing it and he started
8:52
playing uh
8:53
music craft you know guitars that he'd
8:55
put together you know with parts and had
8:57
mark jenny
8:58
you know finish for him so
9:01
yeah so there's part of the vintage
9:04
thing
9:05
that also makes it to where because of
9:08
the value that's kind of been
9:10
pushed up by the people in control of
9:14
the market
9:15
it makes it to where these guitars are
9:17
in some way less fun to play
9:20
the funny thing is is that guitar
9:21
vintage amps
9:23
have not gone up in value so you know a
9:26
blackface
9:27
you know deluxe reverb is still in the
9:29
two to three thousand range and that's
9:30
what it's been for
9:32
like 20 years now you know if you go
9:34
back to the 90s you know these were you
9:36
know probably a thousand dollars or less
9:38
but you know for the last 20 years since
9:41
around 2000
9:42
you know these amps have kind of been in
9:44
the same you know price range
9:45
and that which is still in the same
9:47
price range as a boutique and so that's
9:48
why it's like well i like vintage amps
9:51
and it's like i don't sweat
9:52
you know a deluxe reverb you know I've
9:54
got two of them
9:56
and you know i take them on gigs and i
9:59
don't think twice about it it's like i
10:01
can find another one
10:02
you know they're they're under three
10:04
thousand dollars in you know in value
10:06
and it's like
10:07
i don't sweat it so
10:10
that's a big part of the vintage guitar
10:12
thing and so
10:14
i you need to know that there's this
10:16
aspect of
10:18
it's not as much fun to go around and
10:21
play
10:22
because you have a guitar that's worth a
10:23
lot of money and you start sweating it
10:25
and you start thinking about the guitar
10:27
and obsessing over it
10:28
and I've even had guys that had you know
10:30
really expensive vintage guitars like a
10:32
burst
10:33
that i mean they took it with them you
10:35
know took they took them with them
10:36
into the restaurant that we ate at you
10:38
know because they couldn't let it leave
10:39
their side at any point because again
10:41
then you're talking about a guitar
10:42
that's worth a hundred thousand dollars
10:45
so let's let's talk about some of the
10:47
positive things
10:48
you know about about vintage guitars and
10:50
something that i will say that they do
10:52
have
10:53
and there is something about old wood i
10:55
know i just did an episode
10:57
on um how wood affects tone and i had
11:00
some flat earthers respond
11:02
that woods don't affect tone and
11:05
I'm just gonna I'm sorry i do not agree
11:08
with that at all
11:09
and if you want to comment below that's
11:11
great wood does make a difference and
11:13
old wood makes a difference too
11:16
and so and it's not just the old wood
11:19
it's the fact that the old wood has been
11:21
a neck for a long time so let's say you
11:23
found some
11:24
100 year old piece of pine and you made
11:25
a guitar out of it
11:27
well that's that's good but what's
11:29
actually
11:30
you know what actually makes the most
11:32
difference is when you have a piece of
11:35
wood
11:35
that has been a guitar neck and it's
11:37
been under tension
11:39
and it's been finished and it's been
11:41
that way for 50 years there's something
11:43
about it and there's something about
11:44
where the wood
11:44
almost becomes like for a lack of better
11:47
terms it almost starts to become like
11:48
fossilized and those those
11:50
old maple necks like on 50s telecasters
11:53
and stuff
11:54
those next they seem like
11:57
they seem super stiff and they they seem
11:59
harder than
12:00
than the new guitar neck and i think
12:02
it's because it's old wood and it's been
12:04
a neck for 50 years
12:06
so there are some things that are that
12:07
are great you know about old guitars and
12:10
yes there is a nostalgia and we love
12:12
nostalgia
12:13
that's why you know
12:16
you know there have been these new star
12:18
wars films made and frankly they're not
12:19
very good
12:20
you know but we watch them because we
12:23
hunger for nostalgia
12:24
we you know and we keep having movies
12:27
remade and that's because
12:29
we are just you know we are
12:33
nostalgia monsters and we just consume
12:35
it like crazy
12:36
so there is this aspect of vintage
12:38
guitars you know being nostalgia it's
12:40
being like what your hero played it's
12:42
old it's cool
12:43
also vintage guitars have become kind of
12:46
a rite of passage or uh you know it's
12:48
like
12:49
I'm successful I'm a cool guitar player
12:51
i have a vintage guitar
12:54
i can't tell you how many musical
12:56
artists here in Nashville that as soon
12:58
as they you know had a hit
13:00
or that you know they started doing well
13:01
the first thing they did was they went
13:02
down to carter vintage and they
13:04
bought a vintage guitar and they had
13:06
their picture taken and they posted it
13:07
all over
13:08
social media you know it's a big deal
13:10
because that's one of those ride of
13:12
passages as a guitar player when you
13:13
have
13:14
a hit and you're successful you're
13:16
supposed to buy a vintage guitar and
13:18
it's just become like this
13:20
thing and it's interesting you know that
13:23
you know again these 50s and 60s fenders
13:26
and Gibsons have become
13:27
like the gold standard and if you're
13:30
successful
13:31
you have to get one of these things it's
13:32
like having a gold ring on your finger
13:34
or something like that
13:36
so it's uh it's it's very interesting
13:40
um you know on the on the negative
13:44
you know another thing on the negative
13:46
side is frankly old
13:47
fenders you know they don't have very
13:50
wide necks
13:51
you know they're one and five eighths
13:53
some of them were a touch wider
13:54
especially like in the black guard era
13:56
that
13:57
they varied like crazy um
14:00
you know and and you know but but you
14:03
tend to have you know one and
14:04
five-eighths
14:05
or smaller and you know you have this
14:08
seven and you know seven and a quarter
14:10
radius
14:12
and then you have little frets and
14:15
there's nothing wrong with that but most
14:17
people want
14:19
a neck that's wider at the nut you know
14:21
more like 1 11 16.
14:23
they want a flatter radius and they want
14:25
bigger frets
14:27
why because it plays easier
14:30
and so you know like with this guitar i
14:33
love this guitar
14:34
but it doesn't play in and I've had joe
14:37
glazer refret it and it's been plucked
14:39
and has a great nut on it it's set up
14:41
fantastic
14:42
but it doesn't play as good you know as
14:44
my Daniel Castro or my bill crook
14:47
and and that's just that's it and you
14:50
know and then whether it sounds better
14:51
or not
14:52
you know that's subjective i mean that's
14:54
that's up to you you know the listener
14:56
or the player
14:57
so i mean I've had friends of mine you
14:59
know tell me man that dano caster is the
15:01
best sounding guitar you have
15:02
and they have another guy saying that
15:03
bill crook paisley that's the best
15:05
sounding guitar best looking guitar that
15:07
you have
15:08
and then another friend of mine said you
15:10
need to sell everything
15:11
because that 67 that is the best
15:13
sounding guitar that you have it sounds
15:15
amazing
15:17
so all these different people have
15:18
chimed in with different opinions
15:21
um yeah so
15:25
again this is about just kind of walking
15:27
in with your eyes open
15:29
as far as you know vintage guitars not
15:32
trying to bash
15:33
vintage because i like vintage but you
15:36
know it is
15:37
kind of sad with how expensive the
15:39
guitars have gotten
15:40
it's you know because really they've
15:42
gone out of the range of being
15:45
you know a player guitars and even what
15:47
we call player vintage
15:48
have even gotten really expensive
15:50
because you know when a black guard's 50
15:52
grand
15:54
you know even one that's had the body
15:56
and neck refinished and
15:57
is missing the original pickups they're
15:59
still going to ask like ten thousand
16:00
dollars for it which to me it's like
16:02
you know that's a shell but uh but
16:05
that's the way the the market works and
16:07
you need to be aware of that
16:08
and frankly i think the boutique guys
16:10
are doing a great job
16:11
you know i think you know if you're you
16:13
know there are
16:14
great guitars coming out of the custom
16:16
shop there's great you know guitars from
16:18
Daniel castor Carson Hess nacho joe
16:21
Ruggio there's a you know there's a
16:23
there's a bunch of guys you know making
16:26
you know
16:26
great new guitars and uh
16:30
you know and so i hope that if if you
16:32
know like when my friend
16:34
called you know what i wish he would
16:37
have said was
16:38
i found this vintage guitar that i fell
16:40
in love with
16:41
you know that's that's a cooler
16:44
statement than
16:45
i just want to buy a vintage guitar
16:46
because that's one thing when you play
16:48
some vintage guitar
16:50
and you just fall in love with it the
16:51
way it sounds the way it plays and you
16:53
can you know hopefully afford it
16:54
i mean that's a great thing but i think
16:56
it's it's dangerous and i think we've
16:58
all gotten into this mindset and i have
16:59
too you know where
17:00
you know vintage guitars are cool and
17:02
it's cool to own you know vintage stuff
17:05
so I'll tell you one you know kind of
17:07
last story just to talk about
17:09
just to kind of address the fact that
17:11
vintage guitars are really
17:13
um they really vary a lot
17:16
and you know you can't just say hey you
17:19
know
17:20
you know black guards are amazing and
17:22
they're all you know they're all similar
17:23
or something like that
17:24
i ran into Vince gill at joe glazer's
17:27
shop
17:29
and party was like yeah don't don't
17:30
bother him and uh i
17:33
you know i i have you know met him
17:35
before and I've interacted with him
17:36
before but i mean he doesn't he doesn't
17:37
know me
17:38
and uh so i was just asking him because
17:42
he
17:42
he adds a second string tree to all of
17:44
his black guards
17:46
and in fact i have this string tree
17:48
right here that joe glazer
17:50
has you know started selling and these
17:52
are like six bucks and I'm just messing
17:53
around with it this is not an
17:54
endorsement
17:55
i haven't decided whether i want to keep
17:57
this or not but I'm still just kind of
17:59
messing around with it but this is a
18:00
string tree that covers three strings
18:03
and so
18:04
Vince really likes the downward pressure
18:08
that you get from a second string tree
18:10
and so even on his old black guards he
18:12
has that added
18:14
so i was asking him more about the
18:15
guitar that he had in the shop at that
18:17
point was a 51
18:18
no caster that the body had been
18:20
stripped and
18:21
and he had it and uh and so i was just
18:24
asking about you know
18:26
what made you buy this guitar and he
18:29
said
18:30
you know for years i have been trying to
18:33
find a guitar
18:34
like my 53 telly so his main 53 tele
18:38
that kind of white
18:38
blonde looking guitar with the black
18:40
pickguard that he's been playing since
18:42
the early 80s
18:43
that's his favorite guitar and so even
18:47
with Vince gill's
18:48
you know kind of fame and the amount of
18:50
money that he has
18:51
and the amount of pull that he has in
18:53
the vintage world he has not been able
18:55
to find a guitar like that one
18:58
and so he's bought a bunch of black
19:00
guards and none of them have the sound
19:02
and the same kind of feeling neck as his
19:05
old one
19:06
and so this 51 no caster was the closest
19:08
he had been able to find so
19:10
far but i just thought that was
19:13
um very you know kind of
19:17
interesting to think about okay here's
19:19
this guy that he has
19:21
you know he has the wherewithal to
19:24
track something down but even he can't
19:26
find it
19:27
you know that that 53 that he has he
19:29
can't find another one and he just wants
19:31
another one
19:32
so that if he breaks a string or that he
19:34
could have one in another tuning
19:35
but he has not been able to track find a
19:37
guitar that he can just switch easily
19:40
and then have it where it sounds and
19:42
feels like his old 53.
19:44
so anyway so that's kind of the uh
19:48
the vintage guitar thing and uh
19:52
i will say about old wood you know with
19:54
uh with uh
19:55
with acoustic guitars old wood is
19:57
there's there's not even a uh
19:59
you can't even argue that because you
20:01
know old acoustic guitars sound
20:03
so much better than the new ones and i
20:06
love new acoustic guitars too i have a
20:07
you know i have a a waterloo guitar that
20:10
that's great but i mean the old
20:11
dry acoustic guitars they just sound
20:14
amazing
20:15
so i had some of you guys say you know
20:18
we
20:19
we show at least one lick you know at
20:21
the end of each episode and so uh
20:24
here I'm going to show uh you know two
20:27
of my favorite kind of double string
20:29
bins so we're gonna do this in the key
20:31
of b
20:34
and so uh this is one
20:37
[Music]
20:39
okay and all you're doing is taking this
20:41
right here
20:43
and you're and you're bending it up
20:49
and uh I've just always liked that bin
20:52
it's a good double string bend
20:56
and you kind of i tend to start where
20:58
it's already bent
21:00
or sometimes i don't
21:03
[Music]
21:06
and then another one would be just to to
21:09
do a double string bend here
21:14
and that's just work
21:21
so you can go
21:23
[Music]
21:27
so there's some cool uh double string
21:29
bins to to work on and have fun with
21:32
well i hope you've enjoyed today's
21:34
episode and uh
21:35
yeah and you'll just think about you
21:37
know yeah
21:39
think you know before you go blindly out
21:41
wanting to get a vintage guitar you know
21:43
think about it you know think about it
21:45
and uh yeah
21:47
well i hope you have a great week and
21:49
I'll see you next time bye